Joy Division vs. New Order

maybe this is the first poll. the first scientific approach but we already had at least 123 threads on this question. i am not going to count them out. but everyone knows deep inside their hearts what the answer is...

Actually it was this post on the other thread that helped me decide:add Ceremony and Procession to the 81/82 FACTUS8 EP and you're left with a collection that rivals or surpasses any collection of Joy Division tunes.

― brotherlovesdub, Monday, 8 December 2008 18:57 (55 minutes ago)

Of course, Procession already is on there, but the point still stands. Can I throw on Cries & Whispers instead?

aren't Mesh and Cries and Whispers on there? fuck, i'll have to break this out again. btw, i have 2 copies on CD if anybody wants to trade for somethign else. i've also got doubles of the promo only 20 Years of New Order compilation.

A bit tangential but since we're all here and I posted about this over on the band's thread, the two part Ian Crause story about Disco Inferno (part one and part two) contains a LOT on both JD and NO's influence on him -- always apparent but it's nice to read some of the details. For instance:

I became a huge fan of Joy Division. I went out and bought 'Closer' over the Easter weekend in 1988. I remember laying face down on my parents’ sofa and putting the record on. The first time it finished I thought it might be the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard, so I put it on again. The second time it finished, I was convinced it was the most brilliant thing I ever would hear. I think I still stand by that, as long as there’s a Bach caveat in there.

...I got friendly with Paul Willmott, who was one of the in crowd in the year above me. He was a 6th former so our friendship really did cross a social chasm. We were into what was then outsider sorts of music like The House of Love and New Order – it was outsider-y for a 15 year old in Ilford (Essex) in 1988, believe me – and he even took Joy Division seriously which for me is still, to some degree, the measure of a man’s soul.

And later, when recording "The Last Dance" in 1993, this wonderful anecdote about Michael Johnson:

Geoff (Travis) heard it and wanting us to make poppier singles put us in touch with Michael Johnson who had started as Joy Division’s tape op on 'Closer' and gone on to engineer and help produce everything up to and including 'Technique'. Ironically, we had to put back our first recording session due to the fact I had tickets to see New Order at Reading. It’s ironic because they had just effectively sacked him after 12 odd years by deciding to work without him but he turned out to be a lovely guy and didn’t seem offended as many in the music biz may well have been by such perfidiousness.

Having done 'DI Go Pop' and not now wanting to repeat it, I got right into the whole New Order thing (while I thought of the next big stylistic move) and finally got to rent a Gibson 335 guitar like Bernard Sumner always used and which I’d never had a chance to play. That’s the guitar on the track. I just loved it.

We recorded at studio owner and engineer John Rivers’ place in Bath. He had made most of the Two-Tone stuff, so both our guys had impressive form, as it were. The band had a fantastic time, though they didn’t see eye to eye. When it came to record the vocals, Michael set up a £99.00 Sure live mic' for me to record the vocals instead of one of an array of £2500+ studio mic's John owned – a few feet in front of the control room speakers. With no headphones. He told John to mono the mix and put it 180% out of phase. I was just to stand in front of the speakers and the mono-ed mix will phase cancel itself out of the final track (apologies for the technical stuff).

John refused point blank to do it and I was voicing reservations as I thought he felt I had a crap voice so had just decided he didn’t give a shit. Michael replied that was how they’d recorded the vocal tracks to most of the New Order albums. Argument won for me.

I'm not the biggest fan of New Order (thought they have some great singles), but Joy Division encapsulates almost everything I hate in rock music (overt gloominess and seriousness, cult of personality, needless ennui, unsexiness, etc), so it's pretty easy to vote for NO.

Yeh, I'm pretty sure Ian Curtis's friends and loved ones would agree that his disaffection was contrived and needless. I think that much was obvious by the way he just snapped out of it, pulled himself together and stopped feeling sorry for himself.

If, on the other hand, that's an accusation you're levelling at fans rather than the band ... aye, fair play some of the time, I guess. Even so, I think you're missing something deeper ... but I would say that, wouldn't I?

lol this is comically impossible. I am a typical ILXor in revering these two bands as the apotheosis of punk/post-punk respectively. J.D. had 0% filler in their lean, brilliant, tragically abbreviated career. N.O. had plenty of dud moments and some latter-day meh albums, but their many career highs rank as some of my very favorite music. I do not think I can vote. I probably will eventually, but it will be arbitrary.

Yeh, I'm pretty sure Ian Curtis's friends and loved ones would agree that his disaffection was contrived and needless. I think that much was obvious by the way he just snapped out of it, pulled himself together and stopped feeling sorry for himself.

I'm not talking about the people behind the music, just about music itself. I'm sure Curtis had plenty of reasons to feel the way he did, but that doesn't make the music any more appealing to me.

I'm going for NO but hate having to choose. JD had such a huge impact on the 16 year old Trifle but the fact that they came out of that and made another band who were incredible for such a long time gives them the edge. Also, over the years, I've had to argue that NO are the GREATEST BAND EVER so many times, I think I actually believe it now, even though the 2 JD albums + Atmosphere + LWTUA are just about as perfect a discography as you could have. Oh, damn it I'm starting talk myself out of my vote.

If you discount their earliest days, Joy Division made surprisingly few missteps. Their oeuvre is small but perfect. Of their fifty odd songs, there are probably only two or three I don't much like. New Order are a bit more hit and miss, some of their stuff has dated more, some of Bernard's doggerel comes close to ruining good songs, some of their remixes aren't too good, I don't especially care for their last couple of albums. And I can't imagine Ian Curtis doing World In Motion.

I suspect IC would have been a fun-hating negative influence on NO's continued development. Part of what makes NO great is their total willingness to make utter fools of themselves - World In Motion, playing on the Babewatch set - because their willingness to make fools of themselves results in genius just as often as it does in foolishness.

Alan Mcgee is flogging off all his old shit and it contains many, many items of interest to the New Order / Joy Division obsessive such as myself (but please don't bid on item 91 because I want that for sentimentral reasons - k thanx)

aww i was hoping one of the t-shirts was the one with ian with head in hands & lots of small orange squares at the bottom - they were everywhere c. 1983-5 and i'd get all sentimental for one of those (+ that photocopied book collecting music press clippings & badly transcribed lyrics!)